Hawkins arrested on sexual assault charge

EDITOR'S NOTE: Comment functionality has been removed from this story.

A Callahan County man reported to be a member of the House of Yahweh religious sect remained in jail on $500,000 bail Thursday after his arrest Tuesday for the alleged sexual assault of his 14-year-old stepdaughter.

Abilene police arrested Yedidiyah Hawkins, 40, on a Callahan County warrant for the second-degree felony, which is punishable by two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Callahan County's investigation began with an anonymous report to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services by former members of the Yahweh sect, called John Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 in the arrest affidavit. CPS abuse reports often stay anonymous to protect informants, according to a TDFPS spokesman.

Both sources, who maintain close ties to the sect the affidavit said, had been told by current members of the House of Yahweh that Hawkins had molested the girl, whom he had begun preparing to marry.

From those reports, Child and Protective Services, a division of TDFPS, interviewed Hawkins' stepdaughter at the Abilene/Taylor County Child Advocacy Center. She "made outcries that she has been molested since she" was 8, the affidavit said. Hawkins most recently assaulted her in his bedroom around Oct. 4, the affidavit said.

When Hawkins came to pick up the girl Tuesday afternoon, Terriell Perkins, an investigator in the Abilene Police Department's youth division, arrested him, police said.

The House of Yahweh is an Old Testament-based religious group with headquarters with a compound of about 50 acres between Clyde and Eula in Callahan County, according to Reporter-News files. Bill Hawkins, a former Abilene policeman who left the department in 1977, founded the sect in 1980.

Hawkins later changed his name to "Yisrayl" Hawkins, and many members of the House of Yahweh have changed their last name to Hawkins and adopted an unusual spelling of their first name, usually incorporating at least one letter "y."

Yisrayl Hawkins' group has attracted media attention on several occasions. In July 2006, Abilene police investigated the death of a 1-month-old boy whose death and burial had not been reported to authorities. An autopsy later indicated that the child died of malnourishment and traumatic asphyxiation. No charges have been filed in the child's death.

Also, a sect member pleaded guilty to injury to a child by criminal negligence in October 2006 for performing surgery on her 7-year-old daughter, which authorities said led to her death.